It’s El Clásico time again, which means it’s time for the sports world’s fiercest rivals, Real Madrid and Barcelona, to square off in the Most Important Soccer Game in All of Human History—or at least the biggest one since the last time the two met. While the titanic stakes of this game can sometimes be overplayed,…

It’s normally a safe bet that the two Clásicos of any given season will both be among the biggest and best matches of the year. Clásicos pit the two giants of Spain against one another, with teams as rich in talent as in history, in arguably the most intense and passionate rivalry in Europe, and which almost always…

After seeing how summarily Barcelona dispensed with Real Madrid, the temptation is to lay the blame at the feet of their first-year manager, Rafa Benítez. That seems to be the way club president Florentino Pérez is leaning. (Benítez has even received the dreaded vote of confidence! The end is nigh!) And while…

Of everything that happened in this Clásico—a half-strength Barcelona waltzing into the Bernabéu and not only beating a full-strength Real Madrid team that desperately needed a win, but pummeling them in gloriously humiliating fashion; the notoriously careful Rafa Benítez basically being pressured by his president…

Luiz Suarez put Barcelona up early in today’s El Clásico with this slick finish. While the goal itself was quite good, Sergi Roberto’s smart running and perfectly timed layoff with the outside of his foot were even better.

A Spanish referee has filed a complaint with local police, claiming that upon notice that he was to be selected as the line judge in next month’s Real Madrid-Barcelona match, his bosses made it clear that he was to make decisions in favor of the Madrid club.

Karim Benzema's tiny little flick to Ronaldo is a thing of beauty because it's the kind of devilish move that makes soccer special. At first glance, it's just another back-heel. Then Ronaldo comes charging down the pitch with nothing but green and a goalkeeper in front of him and you realize, oh my God, that play was…

For a depressingly large group of actuarial soccer fans, this season's thrilling edition of the duel between temporally and cosmically entwined superstars Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi has mainly served as another set of cudgels to club down the other's reputation and legacy. Go deeper, because if you're…

For as world-stoppingly important as it feels every time Real Madrid and Barcelona take the pitch against one another, we've actually become a bit inured to them over the years. If it seems like there are about eight El Clásicos every season nowadays, it's because there pretty much are: in the past four years, the two…

Just in time for tomorrow's match, Facebook has released its El Clásico fandom map of the world (minus China). The red nations support Barcelona, the white ones Real Madrid. If the two blocs went to war, it'd be a blowout.

The Real Madrid-FC Barcelona rivalry is one of the greatest in sports, and almost everyone in the world picks a side when the two clubs meet. I know this is the part where I'm supposed to speak some sappy bullshit about how this rivalry seeps through all the way to the Animal Kingdom, and use that as a reason this pup…

The final el clásico of the year. A one-off match for the Copa del Rey trophy. A trophy-starved Barça's last legitimate shot for silverware. Star man Cristiano Ronaldo out with an injury. And in the middle of all this, newcomer Gareth Bale decided he'd just outrun everyone.

Tomorrow is El Clásico, a matchup between two of the biggest, most storied clubs in the world: Real Madrid and Barcelona. It's the best rivalry in sports because it's the best kind of rivalry in sports. For 90 minutes, decades of shared history, clashing politics and nationalism will intersect with soccer to create an…

In tonight's Copa del Rey, Real Madrid traveled to Barcelona and throttled them 3-1 to oust their rivals from the Spanish Cup. It was a shocking result in what many consider to be the world's greatest derby. Since former Barcelona manager Pep Guardiola's hiring in 2008, Barça has dominated El Clasico while cementing…

Real Madrid clinched the Spanish Supercopa with today's victory over Barcelona, but Lionel Messi still did something remarkably Messi-like on this free kick at the end of the first half. Be sure to watch the replay that begins at the 45-second mark to see the way Messi managed to get the ball outside the wall and…

The answer is, no, obviously not. That would be stupid. But we can't ignore it, because at least one entity is buying into the conspiracy theory that Messi, Pedro and their Barcelona teammates are sending hidden messages to the Syrian resistance via their on-field play in a recent Clásico: Syrian State TV.

Barcelona holds a 4-3 aggregate edge in the second half of their return trip to Real Madrid in the Copa del Rey, thanks to the illusionist Lionel Messi setting up Pedro for the initial score and then a blistering strike by Dani Alves off a free kick rebound. The goals set up a 4-1 aggregate edge that would have…